The blessing of neighborhood friends

I had been praying for years for God to send me friends who live nearby and share our values and have kids similar in age to ours.  A few years ago, the Lord prompted me to host a Christmas Party for the children in our neighborhood as an outreach.  My goal for the party was to reach out to lost neighbors, have lots of fun celebrating together, and give a simple gospel presentation.

Instead of reaching the lost, God sent us the best neighbors we have ever had as an answer to my prayers.  I was blown away to learn that they are also members of our church located so far away with countless other churches to choose among between here and there.  They have young children who have become fast friends with our kids.  We are like-minded with regard to everything from faith and politics to child rearing, home improvement projects, and education.  She was there for me when my cornea ripped leaving me in excruciating pain and unable to see, much less drive. They are always ready and willing to help in any way they can and love our kids as if they were their own.  I would do anything for them as well.   We take turns hosting play dates, and they have provided childcare in times when we were desperate for a sitter.  We share frustrations, joys, and anxieties, and offer comfort to one another when needed.  Our kids even share clothes and toys.  She's helping our 8-year-old learn responsibility by "hiring" her to babysit her youngest on occasions when another adult is present. 

Proverbs 17:17a
A friend loves at all times...

The kids loved attending golf camp and swimming together this summer.  Soon we will be attending group piano lessons and recitals together since their son will be taking lessons from our kids' teacher this year.  When we have had short notice home showings, we have often fled to their house or picked up their son and taken him out for ice-cream or smoothies.

A few weeks ago, I took their son and my kids to Adventure Landing.  Here are some photos from that outing as a reminder of how much we love spending time with this family. 

Their son had recently lost his two front teeth, so when the kids chose scary teeth from the prize box at Adventure Landing, I thought that was a nice way to keep him from singing, "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth".  We stopped by a grocery store on the way home for some milk, but I didn't realize until we were walking out that both he and my daughter were wearing those silly teeth. No wonder the check-out clerk gave me funny looks and checked me out so quickly!

My son was so funny in the way he played mini-golf.  His buddy was so focused and careful while our boy would not even look at the ball when carelessly swinging his putter. Yet our little 5-year old nailed at least three hole-in-ones and beat us all in the first nine.  Our fun-loving boy also liked to pretend his golf club was a guitar and rocked out with the music as shown in the video below.  His sister joined in on the fun, but our more well-behaved neighbor just kept his eye on the ball.  Unfortunately, I cannot seem to get to the sound to upload with the video. 

Thank you, God, for giving us these precious friends to "do life with" on a regular basis.